Laughter is the best pain-killer,” claims Lee Dainton of foursome Dirty Sanchez, a slightly warped team of mental Welshmen that have made a living out of, well, let’s see: sand-papering arses, nailing penises to things and drinking poop, among many other unmentionable antics.
And yes, that would be their own arses, penises and poop. So this man knows what he’s talking about. Still, laughter? Is that all?
“No, of course that doesn’t work,” he admits. “I’m just trying to be tough. Morphine’s your best bet.”
Remember the days when Johnny Knoxville’s brainchild Jackass used to shock us? A bunch of men prancing around in their underwear attempting stunts such as ‘drinking lots and lots of milk’ and ‘having a fake erection in the gym’.
Sure, there was the odd serious injury and plenty of falls, but nothing like what Dainton, Joyce, Pritchard and Pancho put themselves through.
With three series completed and a travelling live show that dropped in on Ireland a few weeks ago, the next step, much like their predecessors, is Dirty Sanchez: The Movie. God help us.
Or, more to the point, God help them. The film, based on the idea that the boys must survive the seven deadly sins, and due for release around October, has challenged Pancho and his less vertically-challenged friends like four heavy drinkers from Wales should never be challenged.
“Imagine dropping us in the Mexican desert to fend for ourselves? I almost died!” exclaims Dainton. Not only that, but it seems the boys have even managed to reach new lows: “In Bangkok we just totally disgraced ourselves. If they can pass some of the things through the BBFC it’s properly, properly going to freak people out. But it’s so funny as well, you know.”
Considering the camparisons between DS and Jackass, Dainton is as surprised as anyone to see that the third series is doing nicely across the pond. “Obviously Jackass came from the States,” he points out, “and I was worried they might think that we were just trying to rip them off, because that’s what a lot of people say to us. But the first and second series did okay out there, they did good actually, and now the third one is the second highest rated series on MTV2. We’ve been out there and people recognise us on the streets and stuff so it must be doing well.”
Indeed, the fact that these “four wankers” (his words, not mine) are now internationally famous for “just fucking about really” is not lost on Mr. Dainton.
“People are paying to see us? What’s going on? Before, people wouldn’t let us into clubs because of the clothes we wore and now they’re paying us to go in. There must be something wrong with society.”
Take for example, the 40,000-strong crowd that welcomed them on stage with their Celebrity Big Brother bolstered countrymen Goldie Looking Chain at a festival in Leeds last year.
One could almost call them rock stars, what with the constant destruction of hotel-rooms and wanton disregard for their bodies.
In fact, the only things that are lacking are instruments. Or are they?
“We rock the instruments now!” says Lee. “We have a guitar, a microphone and drumsticks. It’s like the Sanchez School Of Rock. It’s fuckin’ diabolical. But you’d be surprised at what you can do with a pair of drumsticks. And two assholes.” Lovely! Moving swiftly on…
Their friendship with the GLC has grown through the years, this is well-known, but what of other famous Welsh folk? How are relations with the not-so-angelic Charlotte Church for example? A fun-loving, straight-talking lass like that, could she be part of their posse?
“I don’t think her mother would condone that,” Lee says. “She stopped Charlotte from speaking to Pritch, she just doesn’t talk to him anymore. I’ll tell you something, she’s gone from being Char to being a bit of a fucking posh-girl, now she thinks she’s something special because she’s with Gav Henson. It’s quite amusing.”
While on the subject of Henson, how are the boys feeling after an anti-climatical Six Nations for Welsh rugby?
“Fuck it, what can you do with half a good team? At least we didn’t get the wooden spoon and we still retain our Grand Slam title because no one won it this year. But I was stoked that Ireland beat those fuckin’ English cunts. And I’m glad you guys won it over anybody else.” Ah, I’m feeling the love.
Of course it’s not all bodily harm and questionable hygene in the Dirty Sanchez camp. Dainton and ‘Pritch’ are both designing shoes for skate label Etnies (“Mine has a big web on the front of it, it’s pretty cool”) and Lee has even taken up photography as a hobby.
So he takes pretty pictures of flowers, is a mite scared of Charlotte Church’s mum and uses morphine. ‘Man of Pain’ my arse!